Download Homily for the Second week of Advent

ADVENT 2B 2014 BOYNES
Notice the first line in our Gospel reading today: "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ
the Son of God." That's because our reading begins with Mark chapter 1, verse 1. And how
does Mark begin his Gospel? By introducing John the Baptist. Must be important if he starts
the whole thing off that way.
And how does he introduce John? By quoting from our first reading in Isaiah: "A voice of one
crying out in the desert: "Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths." " So, what does
that mean? Look at the very next line: "John the Baptist appeared in the desert proclaiming a
baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins." A few lines later he tells us that people were
going out to be "baptized by him in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins."
Sooo...a big part of preparing the way for the Lord is to acknowledge our sins, repent of
our sins, deal with our sins. That's why Mark puts it right at the beginning.
Isaiah gets a little more descriptive in the first reading: "In the desert prepare the way of the
Lord! Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God. Every valley shall be filled in,
every mountain and hill made low." And what's the result of all this preparation? "Then the
glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together."
So if we're not seeing "the glory of the Lord" in our life, or in the world around us,
perhaps we need to deal with our sins. The Gospel mentions the first step: to acknowledge that
there we sin, that we do separate ourselves from God when we go against His truth. And that
some of these sins are "mortal", meaning that they can separate us from Him forever. But we
need to deal with venial sins too, because they can form habits in our heart that lead to greater
sins.
Sometimes I have people come to confession after several months, and all they confess
is that they may have used God's name in vein a couple of times. Really? Proverbs 24:16
says, "The just man falls seven times a day." Have we loved God with all our heart and mind
and soul, all the time? That's the first commandment. Have we really loved our neighbor as
ourself, every day? Acknowledging our sins may require us to look at our lives a little more
closely. Its that humility and that spiritual surrender that makes room for God's grace to move in
us. That's one of the ways that we fill in those valleys and straighten out those curves, one of
the ways we "make straight a highway for our God."
The Gospel today also mentions the next step: "repentance." To repent means more than
sorrow. It means to turn away from sin, but also to turn toward the Lord and His goodness. It
means to turn away from habits and patterns that are contrary to love, contrary to the dignity of
the human person, contrary to the gift of self that marks us as being made in the image and
likeness of God. It means replacing those actions with virtues, those habits that lead us toward
the fullness of life and the lasting joy that only comes from living in God's truth.
We also heard about repentance today in the second reading, from the Second Letter of Peter.
But it also says that God is patient with us: "He is patient with you, not wishing that any should
perish, but that all should come to repentance." Great, right? We can take our time, we can get
around to that repenting thing when we're done having fun! Well, not so much. That's the
danger of taking one verse of scripture out of context.
The very next line says, "But the day of the Lord will come like a thief," just as Jesus
told us last Sunday, "You do not know when the time will come." The overall message of
scripture is a sense of urgency, that we should live each day in preparation for His coming. Our
second reading ends with that sentiment: "Therefore, beloved, since you await these things, be
eager to be found without spot or blemish before him, at peace."
"at peace." The word "peace" in scripture means more than the absence of conflict or
disruption. Its more active than that. It means being in right relationship with God and with
each other. It means being reconciled or reconnected when we've turned away, when we've
disrupted that right relationship with God or with another person.
That's why the Sacrament of Reconciliation is such a great gift. It returns us to that state of
peace, that right relationship with God and with our brothers and sisters. Why confess to a
priest? Because the priest represents both the Lord and the community of the Church, and
we need to be reconciled to both when we have sinned. Sin not only harms are relationship
with God, but also with the Body of Christ that is the Church.
All sin is social, even those sins that are known only by you and God. Sin makes us
weaker members of the Body of Christ, it creates curves and valleys in the road that slow down
God's grace. It feeds those habits of selfishness and vice. That makes us less likely to be
generous and forgiving, less able to be an example or an encouragement to one another. And
we need each other in those things. Sins that are known by others can make it more difficult to
spread the Gospel and lead people to Christ. So sin causes damage to the Body of Christ,
whether those sins are public or private.
The early Church had a strong sense for this. Confession of sin was often in public, before the
whole community, and there was a period of penitence before you were fully reconciled with the
community. We don't do it that way today, but the idea is the same: we need to restore that
peace, that right relationship, with God and with the people of God. Again, that's why
Confession/Reconciliation is such a blessing. The priest, acting in persona Christi - in the
person of Christ - is able to reconcile us with the Body of Christ as well as with the Lord.
How can we use this Advent season to deal with those obstacles that we place in the way of
God's grace?
"Prepare the way of the Lord! Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God. Every
valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low...Then the glory of the Lord shall be
revealed, and all people shall see it
together"